Did you see the message where we need to stop working on the formatting cause SirataXero is working on the menus for that page too? He is having to change a bit of our work to make the menu stuff work so..... We wait.

Hey guys, please, by all means, do not let me stop you. The only thing I REALLY require you guys to do (as of yet) is include each verse in its own div with class="palm-body-text" because that's what i'm using to count how many verses there are in each chapter. And just use <title>book name</title> so that I can pull out the book name. Other than that, I don't really see the need for anything different yet...

I'll keep you guys in the loop, but other than that, please don't stop and wait for me!

Hey guys, please, by all means, do not let me stop you. The only thing I REALLY require you guys to do (as of yet) is include each verse in its own div with class="palm-body-text" because that's what i'm using to count how many verses there are in each chapter. And just use <title>book name</title> so that I can pull out the book name. Other than that, I don't really see the need for anything different yet...

I'll keep you guys in the loop, but other than that, please don't stop and wait for me!

Just send us one example. I don't want to misunderstand you and do a bunch of work that has to be redone later. Also, can we not just put a div id in there that tells you how many verses? Or can you scan for the last div id="HABc3vxx" and see that verse xx is the last one?

Here is a list of Books and Abbreviations so we can all be on the same page. I'm going to start building the buttons for the first scene. I'll use these as scene names. Something that can be a bit tricky. I believe the scene names and jsjsjs$assistant$$files$$should$$all$$be$$named$$in$$lower$$case$$but$$the$$functions$$inside$$the$ .$js$$assistant$$files$$have$$to$$have$$the$$1st$$letter$$capitalized$?? $Anyway$$here$$is$$the$$list$$of$$abbreviations$:

Here is a list of Books and Abbreviations so we can all be on the same page. I'm going to start building the buttons for the first scene. I'll use these as scene names. Something that can be a bit tricky. I believe the scene names and jsjsjs$assistant$$files$$should$$all$$be$$named$$in$$lower$$case$$but$$the$$functions$$inside$$the$ .$js$$assistant$$files$$have$$to$$have$$the$$1st$$letter$$capitalized$?? $Anyway$$here$$is$$the$$list$$of$$abbreviations$:

Thus, just this code alone will show up 3 verses in the menus. I have that working, where I can differentiate/count out how many verses are in the chapter. I'm just figuring out the best way to show them (intpicker within the menu).

So, again, the only thing I've changed is the header part. You don't really need it anyway, so I suggest keeping it out. Just keep the title tags with the book name inside, so the menus can find it.

Also as per your idea of having the last div id in there, it would be difficult to parse the entire HTML as a string, since I already started the DOM structure. I find the DOM a BIT more easier to work with. I can use DOM to say "look for anything that has the class "palm-body-text" and it then spits out an array of those divs. Since i'm trying to make this universal, (I don't want to go back, or have someone else go back) each time for each file, It would be easier for someone to just go through the HTML and put div tags with class "palm-body-text" on every verse. Having unique id's to go through and look up might be too much extra coding in HTML as well as in JSJSJS.

Keeping this in mind, please make sure to have each verse as its own div with this class on it. Make sure NOTHING else has this class. Keep titles as "palm-body-title" or whatever the rest of them are. The menus will think ANYTHING with "palm-body-text" is a verse.

This is how far I've gotten... I'm not sure if I'll do much more tonight. We'll see.

Ok. First off... I have been waiting for this for some time. I recently came over to the Pre from BB... so, I have severely missed my bible app! However, I am not a hug fan of the KJV... so, not trying to step on any toes here... but, I am in contact with Crossway seeking permission to add the ESV (English Standard Version) to this application.
Again, I am not trying to step on anyones toes... I just want to do whatever I can to make this a reality for the Palm Pre.
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help! God Bless.

Ok. First off... I have been waiting for this for some time. I recently came over to the Pre from BB... so, I have severely missed my bible app! However, I am not a hug fan of the KJV... so, not trying to step on any toes here... but, I am in contact with Crossway seeking permission to add the ESV (English Standard Version) to this application.
Again, I am not trying to step on anyones toes... I just want to do whatever I can to make this a reality for the Palm Pre.
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help! God Bless.

Cybrspidey

Hey,

that's awesome! Welcome to the Pre! haha. Don't worry about stepping on anyone's toes, we welcome input/criticism as long as its constructive.

It's no big deal if you're not a big fan of KJV, we just wanted to pick SOMETHING as a spring board. Once we get this done and ready for release, any other version/book would be REALLY easy to quickly format and attach to this app. That's the idea!

good morning all, been working on this for a few hours and i have a working first scene that opens a "book" scene with a string that represents the testament, the list of books, the index of which book was selected, and the file path to the html file for the book.

here is the latest in all of its glory, hee hee (getting punchy)...

who wants to incorporate this into the main source, or do you want me to incorporate something else into mine?

Is this the sort of slider that you are thinking about including? Could the slider bar move you through the chapter and the arrows go to the next or previous chapter? Does it have to be so huge of controls? I know that they are going for their 49 pixel min resolution but the Pre controls look like they were designed by Fisher-Price.

Originally Posted by cybrspidey

...I am in contact with Crossway seeking permission to add the ESV (English Standard Version) to this application....

Cybrspidey,

Would they also consider letting us include the NIV. That is what I need to teach confirmation.

Everyone, I am just dying to see how this will look! I am just amazed at the collaboration!

good morning all, been working on this for a few hours and i have a working first scene that opens a "book" scene with a string that represents the testament, the list of books, the index of which book was selected, and the file path to the html file for the book.

here is the latest in all of its glory, hee hee (getting punchy)...

who wants to incorporate this into the main source, or do you want me to incorporate something else into mine?

While this looks nice, We need to be able to incorporate more than just the Old Testament and the New Testament. Some people have other religious works that they would want to include that follow the same structure. An Example would be with the LDS Church. Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price... This is just an example of why the first scene needs to have a the ability to have more than 2 main books listed.

So I'm trying to learn. I know how to go to an Anchor in standard HTML, how do you go to a specific div id? from a link. Can you show a sample of how you are navigating to a specific verse from your picker?

I also hope there is some automated method for inserting all of the needed div id's for each and every verse in the bible. Other wise that is a LOT of manual work.

Also what if each and every verse was coded in to a database? So multiple columns, 1 listing book, 1 chapter, 1 verse, 1 the text of the verse, and 1 that lists it something like Genesis 1:1 I have the entire Bible in a DB like this already. Either entire bible in 1 Table, or each book in a separate table. I'm going to try and attach both methods in excel tables for you to get an idea. 1 is a single table with all the scriptures in 1 table, and the other 3 are linked tables with one listing volume (Old Testament/ New Testament) and one listing Books (Mark/Peter/......) And one listing the Verses... I also have this DB in SQLLite which could be directly read by pre apps if I am not mistaken. meaning, NO manual modification of scriptures to format them in a way that can be read.

I'm not sure how many rows can be fetched at a time and then displayed and scrolled through, but Ideally one could pull a chapter at a time.

OK, the Excel file is too big to attach it all. I can email it to you to check out if you wish. Or I can try and strip out a lot and shrink it down small enough with just a book or 2 in it.

Is this the sort of slider that you are thinking about including? Could the slider bar move you through the chapter and the arrows go to the next or previous chapter? Does it have to be so huge of controls? I know that they are going for their 49 pixel min resolution but the Pre controls look like they were designed by Fisher-Price.

LOL. I COMPLETELY agree with you on the Fisher Price thing. hahaha. I think they even mentioned it in a couple sample apps, they're trying to go for "ease of access with a finger" deal. They want to make targets easy to hit, and distinguishable enough to not hit other things you didn't mean to. Personally, I havn't had enough play time with a real Pre to know, but with my mouse on the SDK, it does seem like overkill. Oh Well, better safe than sorry. If/Once I configure the slider in, I can try to shrink it to different heights and post it up to see your guys' opinions. I guess having arrows for the next chapter, and slider for within the chapter makes sense. I'll see what I can do for that. As of right now, I'm at the point of trying to view a certain portion of the page given a command through the menus. Once I get that part done, it shouldn't be too hard to make any kind of control that anyone wants to navigate with.

Originally Posted by SirWill

While this looks nice, We need to be able to incorporate more than just the Old Testament and the New Testament. Some people have other religious works that they would want to include that follow the same structure. An Example would be with the LDS Church. Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price... This is just an example of why the first scene needs to have a the ability to have more than 2 main books listed.

SirWill, I agree with you. However, again, we're just trying to start getting ONE thing out at a time. Once we have this one done, it will (hopefully) be very easy to apply these methods to all/most other religious literature. I think this is the pilot program, hence why we are TRYING to keep it as universal as possible, however, at least SOME things need to be hard coded (for now) just to get the basic jist of the program going. It shouldn't be hard to throw in other books/works after this first one is done, that's the idea, but again, it's for later. If we can make progress just on this, it should be good for the first release.

Originally Posted by SirWill

So I'm trying to learn. I know how to go to an Anchor in standard HTML, how do you go to a specific div id? from a link. Can you show a sample of how you are navigating to a specific verse from your picker?

hahahaha. Not to disappoint anyone here, but uhhh... I'm not there yet. I'm just finishing up the UI touches so that I can get into the functionality. >.<. I know, I'm more of a "things should look nice" kind of guy. haha, sorry. I'll start reading into how to get to navigate to different divs. I THINK I read somewhere in the massive online Palm documentation (with horrible organizational structure) that you can put "snap" points in your page that while scrolling, the page will snap on to. I might be able to use that to my benefit, but that's just speculation.

Originally Posted by SirWill

I also hope there is some automated method for inserting all of the needed div id's for each and every verse in the bible. Other wise that is a LOT of manual work.

Yes, as of right now, it is a LOT of manual work. I agree. However, that's why we're trying to keep it open source, and let everyone know how to do it, so not one person has to sit down and hit Control+V all night long. We can have a bunch of people do it for a couple of hours each! hahaha. Again, this is just preliminary, once we get this done, I'm sure we can go back in and try to streamline it, but as of right now, we're working with what we're all comfortable with (and maybe venturing out a little bit out of our domains) but hopefully still within our abilities.

Originally Posted by SirWill

Also what if each and every verse was coded in to a database? So multiple columns, 1 listing book, 1 chapter, 1 verse, 1 the text of the verse, and 1 that lists it something like Genesis 1:1 I have the entire Bible in a DB like this already. Either entire bible in 1 Table, or each book in a separate table. I'm going to try and attach both methods in excel tables for you to get an idea. 1 is a single table with all the scriptures in 1 table, and the other 3 are linked tables with one listing volume (Old Testament/ New Testament) and one listing Books (Mark/Peter/......) And one listing the Verses... I also have this DB in SQLLite which could be directly read by pre apps if I am not mistaken. meaning, NO manual modification of scriptures to format them in a way that can be read.

I'm not sure how many rows can be fetched at a time and then displayed and scrolled through, but Ideally one could pull a chapter at a time.

OK, the Excel file is too big to attach it all. I can email it to you to check out if you wish. Or I can try and strip out a lot and shrink it down small enough with just a book or 2 in it.

What are your thoughts?

Honestly, I REALLY like that idea. I was considering the whole DB/SQLite process, which would most probably be the easiest I think. However, to be honest, I know nothing about databases or SQLite. I have never worked with them, and in order to get this done, I would have to sit down and teach it to myself completely from scratch before I can apply it. Granted i'm all for learning, but it would set this project back at least a week or two while I get familiar and comfortable with databases.

I have also read that as of right now, there's no way to import a database with your program, into the Pre. You would need to attach a CSV or text file (pardon my ignorance here, but I'm just repeating and paraphrasing what I've read before) and then parse it, and add it to a database all within your code. That is the only way to import an entire database into your application to use. I don't think having a database to use is quite practical as of yet. Making one (for a new program) with new data might make sense, but if you already have one, and having to code a loop and whatnot all into your code with an if statement to check to make sure a database doesn't exist already, and then massive lag time in the initial launch of your application (and I'm sure it would be massive) to first make the database, doesn't sound too appealing as of right now.

I'm really sorry if I sound like i'm shooting down your idea on all fronts! haha. I don't mean to at all. I honestly think it would be the quickest, easiest, and most definitely the SMARTEST way to do it. However, since I have no prior database experience, and since the Pre doesn't like previously constructed databases, it just doesn't seem practical as of yet.

Also, while trying to maintain universality (is that a word?) of my menu, I think it would be pretty simple to convert the DOM parser into a database searcher, later down the road. I'm trying to make the menu options completely dependent on the data it is given, thus it should (theoretically) be able to be used with whatever (and however long) data you give it.

SirWill,
The 1st instance of this app is just a Bible. We have plans to work on a larger application that will read many different "religious" texts next. 1st things first though, this will be the bible.

Cybrspidey,
That is super cool that someone is working to get permission for some copywriten text. Once this work is done, it is open source and anyone wanting to add other versions is welcome too. I personally prefer NIV or NLT but they are both copyrighted. In an effort to not slow things down, we went with the KJV cause it was available now.

SirataXero,
Thank you for the example, I got ya loud and clear now about the file and how your counting the instances of div class="palm-body-text". That is simple enough for me. Also if we can leave out the id="HABc1v3" part that would make it easier to convert the original html to the palm scene happy html. I believe you are saying that it is okay to leave that ID tag out?

Milominderbinder,
LOL that fisher price comment was good. However, in the end, I feel we should follow the guidelines here:User Interface Guidelines – webOSdev – Palm
If we want to get real attention from palm come app catalog time.

Stickywhipit,
Yikes! I finished this Sunday night. http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-...ml#post1762490 I though you would have seen that, sorry However I do kinda like the list appearance of your books list rather than the buttoned appearance of mine. Perhaps ppl could express their opinion as to which they would like better and we can go with that. Either way, I'll take care of packaging things together for now. I think I'd like the list even more if the text were left justified and bigger. But that's just my opinion. In fact that's the thing I don't like about the buttons is the text is centered instead of left justified. I feel like the way we English speaking folk are used to reading, stuff being left justified is just easier to scan through. IMO

SirWill,
As for the DB thing. We are trying to keep things simple for this version. The next version will be feature rich and might very well us DB for storing the actual bible text. Your SQLlite could very well be the route we will go.

As for converting the html to prescenes, yes there are two different ppl who have stated they can do the conversion with a script once they have an input file and an output file to compare. We are getting really close to that point.

Kaerey,
Welcome to the project. Hopefully once we get past this same spot you were stumped we can all work together on the next full featured version that will offer multiple translations.

SirataXero,
Thank you for the example, I got ya loud and clear now about the file and how your counting the instances of div class="palm-body-text". That is simple enough for me. Also if we can leave out the id="HABc1v3" part that would make it easier to convert the original html to the palm scene happy html. I believe you are saying that it is okay to leave that ID tag out?

haha awesome. Yeah, I think the id tags are not necessary anymore, as long as, I can't stress this enough, the divs are arranged in order, and ONLY the verses have palm-body-text as a class, then we should be perfectly fine. Sorry, I know I'm beating a dead horse, and I don't mean to offend your intelligence, I'm just trying to make sure we don't have any communication problems between not only me and you, but anyone else who reads this. Also, if it's possible, could you take the "palm-body-text" class out of the "Scripture quotations..." disclaimer? You could throw a <p class="footer"> in there and css format it into a nice little tiny unobtrusive disclaimer. Take a look at the disclaimer on my program that I attached, if you like the look, it's about a 3 line css file that I can post up here. I think it formats the little text nicely. Also, the disclaimer is picked up as a verse (as of right now, I just do total length - 1, which is fine, but I'm just wondering later on down the road not all books may have disclaimers).

Originally Posted by frankos72

Stickywhipit,
Yikes! I finished this Sunday night. http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-...ml#post1762490 I though you would have seen that, sorry However I do kinda like the list appearance of your books list rather than the buttoned appearance of mine. Perhaps ppl could express their opinion as to which they would like better and we can go with that. Either way, I'll take care of packaging things together for now. I think I'd like the list even more if the text were left justified and bigger. But that's just my opinion. In fact that's the thing I don't like about the buttons is the text is centered instead of left justified. I feel like the way we English speaking folk are used to reading, stuff being left justified is just easier to scan through. IMO

haha. I like everything centralized. I was going to suggest having the title header be centralized as well, but, I guess that's just me. haha.

I have also read that as of right now, there's no way to import a database with your program, into the Pre. You would need to attach a CSV or text file (pardon my ignorance here, but I'm just repeating and paraphrasing what I've read before) and then parse it, and add it to a database all within your code.
...
I'm really sorry if I sound like i'm shooting down your idea on all fronts! haha. I don't mean to at all. I honestly think it would be the quickest, easiest, and most definitely the SMARTEST way to do it.

Not really feeling shot down. Since I just shot down the DB myself when I went and did some research. I am flabbergasted that we can't ship a SQLLite DB but rather have to IMPORT it ON the Pre. So even if we include a CSV file that is imported in to it, we also then have no way to delete the csv file afterwords. Thus taking up a LOT of storage space (double)

As for the SQL I live SQL and know how to query a DB to get what is wanted. The real trick would be how to pull from the DB based on the variables assigned by the application controls.

Frankos72
I also understand that this is a first version. I was commenting about how the first scene seems to be seriously coded to just the 2 main books, and the layout of the 2 buttons limits expansion. I was just hinting that the button layout is not expansion friendly for version 2 and would require a UI change to accommodate other texts.

So in light of the above conversation, perhaps you should throw a slider in there and we can put the other controls on hold. I did repose the question to ask about using div id tags in place of anchors. I don't know how long it will take to get an answer on that forum. Hopefully soon so I can put together a sample output file so the script gurus can get to work converting the .html files over to scenes.